My Brother's Keeper

 
My Brother's Keeper  
by Lorrieann Russell
(iUniverse / 0-595-20642-5 / November 2001 / 540 pages / $25.95)

We do things the old-fashioned way here at iUniverse Book Reviews. We don't need no stinking pdf's. We read real books like real men. We like 'em big, heavy, and long. We live to read 500-page, heavily-researched, carefully constructed books like My Brother's Keeper. We don't care if it was released back in 2001 and we don't care if it looks like a rerun of The Traitor's Wife, either. We readers here at the iU corral care only that this book is butt-kickin' good! You will see this critter on a store shelf somewhere in a couple of years. As far as we know, that's a done deal, not a wish upon a star. Get it now before they change the cover designed by Miss Lorrieann herself. The sequel's already out and you better read that one, too.

The copy editor's name is displayed right in the front of this book, and that notation should be filed in the George Bush Department. Say what? The proofreading of the book is clearly its weakest link, somewhat like The Decider in The White House. Although the concept may not have crossed the author's mind when she wrote this big, fat jewel, especially considering the date of its release, the story will scare you silly with its allegorical connections with the modern theocracy Bush has created.

The tale of historical fiction is set in Scotland in the early 1600's. Deeply set behind the scenes so ably conjured in the novel is a king who has given his blessing to the powers of the church. The local bishop of Stonehaven revels in the terror his band of witch hunters brings down on the local citizenry. Edward, The Duke of Stonehaven, has been living in denial for years while the injustice, terror, and torture has permeated his segment of the kingdom. The duke enjoys a pleasant lifestyle within the walls of Drumoak Castle, at least until the men in black hoods turn their focus on the residents of Stonehaven. The main storyline surrounds a young man who had been orphaned at an early age, raised by his older brother and the brother's wife until the age of twelve. At that time, young William Fylbrigge was brought to Drumoak Castle to continue his education into life by Edward and his staff. The story opens with William's marriage to Edward's daughter, but the plot thickens rapidly from that point. Here are a few clues. William was raised until he was twelve by his new bride's older sister. His older brother is a greedy turd, and William's nickname for his brother's wife is the dragon. Remember, the dragon raised him as his mom. Did she, now? The plot thickens, and thickens, and thickens.

What we have here is an obvious comparison with Susan Higginbotham's The Traitor's Wife, Anne Rice's The Witching Hour (and her continuing stories of The Mayfair Witches), and Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible. There are clear elements of all of these quality works within the story of My Brother's Keeper. Ms. Rice writes from the perspective of the witches not as villains. So does Ms. Russell. Mr. Miller's play is completely centered around the legendary events in Salem in 1692, about ninety years past the fictional novel set in Scotland. Ms. Higginbotham filled in the unknown parts of a true story of the British Royal Family. My Brother's Keeper is certainly no better than these works, but it deserves a nearly equal, prominent location on your bookshelf. The prequel to this book is on the way from a traditional publisher. My Brother's Keeper and its sequel, In the Wake of Ashes, are scheduled for re-release at some undisclosed date in the future. Remember, you read it here first at iUniverse Book Reviews!

Lorrieann Russell is also a graphic-artist computer-nerd. She has created representations of many characters and scenes from her novels. You can visit this link to see many of Lorrieann's artistic depictions. She has created not only her own covers, but she does covers for other authors as well.

See also: Interview with Lorrieann Russell
Review of the sequel, In the Wake of Ashes

Interview with the Author

We're going to try to start a new series of posts here at iUniverse Book Reviews. We're calling the series Interview with the Author in honor of my favorite author of fiction novels. The we I refer to is composed of Tabitha and whoever requests an interview. In this case it happens to be the only Texas author reviewed on this site. You can call me a copycat for adding this new feature. Many others in the POD blog force have already been offering author interviews. You can also call me the Al Past International Fan Club, but hey, he was the first volunteer so he gets the first worm.

Al Past

Author of Distant Cousin and Distant Cousin: Repatriation

Al Past resides in the small town of Beeville, TX, south of San Antonio, and he is currently writing the third novel in the series, due out later this year.

Tabitha: What inspired you to write Distant Cousin?

Al Past: Several things. (1) It was a story I’d been mulling over for 20 years. Suppose some people who were taken from here long ago managed to come back? What then? I couldn’t get that out of my mind. (2) As a teacher of writing, I wondered if I could create a story that I myself could stand. In other words, I could dish it out, but could I take it? (3) I retired from teaching and finally had the time. (4) The immediate inspiration was a friend, a world-class harpsichordist and prize-winning author, Rebecca Pechefsky, who urged me to quit dithering and just start, to take it one chapter at a time. She was right. It turned out to be wonderful fun.

Tabitha: Is there a particular, actual person who inspired your lead character?

Al Past: Yes, many of the characters are composites of different people I know. The lead character, for example, was inspired in part by a young mathematician & astronomer of my acquaintance.

Tabitha: When I read Distant Cousin, images of a blockbuster movie such as Close Encounters rampaged through my head. Have you envisioned what a movie version would look like?

Al Past: I have, yes. I can see the scenes that take place at the Olympic Games on the screen clearly. West Texas is quite scenic too, and there’s a fair amount of action. It’s also why the main character isn’t a six-foot guy with bulging muscles. It needed to be an attractive, vulnerable person that people would be drawn to. That worked nicely, better than I had hoped.

Tabitha: Did you consider other publishers before you selected iUniverse?

Al Past: Yes, I did. An article in the New York Times mentioned iUniverse and several other POD outfits, and I checked them all out.

Tabitha: How satisfying has your experience with iUniverse been?

Al Past: Generally good. They do what they say they’ll do and they produce a handsome, durable product. It’s pricey, but I’m happier than I would be with one of those cheaper, pocket-sized paperbacks that soon split and spill their pages. The face on the cover of Distant Cousin should have been more obvious, but since I sent iUniverse the original picture, they had no way to recompose it even if they had wished to. The only way to see how it was going to look was to print it, and then it was too late to change it. Another thing: thank heavens I can write well enough to not absolutely need an editor! An experienced book editor probably could have honed it somewhat, and iUniverse could have provided that service, but it would have cost me over $4000!

 

Tabitha: What is the most significant thing you have learned as a POD author? Do you have any advice to offer to new or prospective POD authors?

Al Past: It depends on what your goals are. My original intent was just to get the book into the hands of friends and maybe their friends and see how it went over. POD was the way to go for that. I succeeded! But if your goals are to make big money and/or get famous, then you need to make a more concerted effort, because iUniverse will give you guidance but you’ll have to do it all yourself. I’m a writer, not a marketer or businessperson. I believe there are lots of people out there who would love the Distant Cousin series, and I will work on getting it to them, but I’m not going to sell the farm in the attempt. Others might.

Tabitha: Tell us about the faces that have been carefully integrated into the book covers. Whose face is it? How do the faces key into your intentions for the focus of the books?

Al Past: The face belongs to a young friend of mine who comes from nearly pure Czech stock who very graciously allowed me to use her image. Since the main character’s ancestors came from Eastern Europe, the classic lines of her face were perfect. The idea of superimposing the face over a galaxy was to suggest that the heroine was (1) a very attractive young woman, and (2) that she came from outside our solar system. The face printed more faintly than I had hoped, however, with the result that a lot of people miss it. When it’s pointed out, they think it’s a wonderful, subtle trick...but it wasn’t. It was a mistake. As a consequence, I overcorrected slightly with the face on Distant Cousin: Repatriation. The face on volume three, Distant Cousin: Reincarnation, will be superimposed over a picture of Earth taken from space, to emphasize that Earth is now her home. I can only pray that it will appear obvious yet at the same time subliminal.

Tabitha: Who are some of your favorite authors and books? What genres do you like to read?

Al Past: For me, literature starts with the biggies: Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Mark Twain, in that order. If I were to list the next rank it would soon get out of hand! I also like foreign writers, usually in translation: Andrea Camilleri, Horacio Quiroga, Umberto Eco, Giancarlo Carofiglio...but there’s no point in listing names. I read widely, but seldom by genre, although I do have a love for sea stories (C. S. Forester, Patrick O’Brian, etc.). For recreational reading, I like Robert Parker, Robert Tanenbaum, Tony Hillerman, James Lee Burke, and many others. Shoot, I even read “chick lit” and history, and about music. I guess I’m omni-literate....

Tabitha: What have you been reading lately?

Al Past: A variety of miscellaneous works, like Cuba and Its Music, by Ned Sublette. I liked one recent novel so much I bought a second copy to lend out in case it didn’t come back. I read it twice, in fact: The Hummingbird’s Daughter, by Luis Urrea.

Tabitha: What sort of educational experience do you have, and is it relevant to your writing or the subject matter you have chosen?

Al Past: I have a BA in English and a PhD in linguistics. That’s one reason the main character’s language, not heard on Earth for thousands of years, is from the Indo-European language family. There’s no reason the language couldn’t have been Indian, African, or Semitic, except that I don’t know much about those languages.

Tabitha: What about your work career? Has your choice of profession influenced your writing?

Al Past: I mainly taught freshman English composition for 30 years. The one thing I harped on over and over was that it was the writer’s duty to write for the reader, to write to be easily understood. My students were not headed for careers as professors of literature. They were going to need to be able to communicate clearly for business, technical, or the most utilitarian of purposes. I respect authors who have more complex, artistic strategies, but frankly I seldom read them any more. My books are supposed to be fun. They’re entertainment. People shouldn’t have to work to enjoy them. I think I have used a few semi-colons, though, and I apologize to Kurt Vonnegut for that.

Tabitha: I found a photo of you with a large, antique musical instrument on another website. What would you like to tell us about your musical hobby?

Al Past: I’ve played trumpet since fourth grade. For a while I considered music as a career. I made spending money while in high school playing in dance bands and the like. It’s a tough way to make a living, however, and anyway I mostly preferred baroque music. There are more professional poets in the world today than baroque trumpet players. In that picture, I was holding a piccolo trumpet (actually a modern version of an early trumpet), rehearsing some Vivaldi for a student/faculty recital.

Tabitha: What’s next for Al Past, the writer?

Al Past: I’m currently in the final stages of volume three of the Distant Cousin series, Distant Cousin: Reincarnation, which should be out this year (2007), perhaps this summer or certainly this fall. People love the story and the characters (as do I), and they wanted more. After that, who knows? My second daughter wants me to write a mystery novel containing a Puerto Rican disc jockey in Corpus Christi, Texas. I don’t know about that, but I’ve enjoyed the writing I’ve done so far.

Tabitha: Do you have any final remarks to address to your readers or our audience?

Al Past: Well, speaking as a struggling POD author, first I’d like to thank you and the other legitimate reviewers of POD titles. You folks work a lot harder than most people appreciate (for little or no pay!), but you provide a terrific, much-needed service for the world. Bravo! We know that the digital age has been a great boon to indie musicians, film people, would-be journalists, and others, enabling them to get together despite the 800 pound gorillas of the major companies which control most of what is put before the public in traditional ways. I would remind everyone that the one way that never fails to work is word of mouth: if you try a book and like it, tell someone! Give it as a gift! Hell, even contact the author with a pat on the back! The POD phenomenon will be what we all make it. My vote is to make it the great voice of freedom and diversity.

Visit Dr. Past's Website

Coming Soon

The next review will be of Lorrieann Russell's My Brother's Keeper, a novel of historical fiction falling within the genre next door to The Traitor's Wife. There will probably be a lot of similarity to Ms. Higginbotham's successful masterpiece uncovered as I dive deeper into the plot. Both are large, seemingly well researched stories about the events of an earlier period. The main difference is that The Traitor's Wife has the advantage of surrounding a true story of the British Royal Family, while My Brother's Keeper does not. In other words, Susan has a gaggle of obsessors nipping at her heels and Lorrieann lacks this marketing advantage. What I expect to discover is that Lorrieann deserves the same level of attention that Susan has already received. These two books accurately represent the reason I undertook this project. They are proof that some POD authors deserve to be called simply authors.

I have a lot more information up my sleeve about Lorrieann that I may reveal at a later time. My Brother's Keeper was originally released by Xlibris, but quality issues drove her to iUniverse. As I have said before, if you are going to spend a gazillion bucks and hours creating and marketing your masterpiece, why submit it to less than the best? She is a graphic artist and she has created not only her book covers, but many renderings of her books' characters, just as she has imagined them to look. I may have to post one or more of these artistic works, or at least provide links to them. I haven't decided yet. As far as Lorrieann goes, there is much more to come. Remember, you read it here first.

I am pleased to see the family of POD reviewers developing, and I am equally pleased to see the subjects of some of my early reviews popping up on the other sites, too. Susan Higginbotham, Lyda Phillips, Tim Phelan, and Guntis Goncarovs have recently been reviewed on other sites. When is someone going to discover Al Past and some of the other notables?

Some sites seem to be introducing interviews with authors. I assume these have been accomplished utilizing simple email transactions. Do the authors and readers want to see more of these? I'll join up if authors or readers request it in the comments. Does anyone wish to be interviewed? Should the family of reviewers begin to interview each other, or is that a little too much from the redundant Department of Redundancy?

My Back Pages

Bob Dylan released a song named My Back Pages on his Another Side album back in '64. Many of us have become familiar with the memorable refrain, "I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now." I thought I would offer a little personal anecdote about my early compositions, how they matured along with me, and the relevance of it all to the POD phenomenon we participate in today.

I just pulled out my LP copy of Another Side of Bob Dylan to verify the exact title of the tune I wanted to reference. Slipped inside the shrink wrap on the front cover is a pencil drawing of the Bob I always liked best, the one posed on the cover of Highway 61 Revisited. I showed it to my wife and made a comment about how she did not know that I used to be an artist. It wasn't long after 1964 that I ceased making pencil drawings of Dylan and Donald Duck (another favorite) and began writing in a spiral notebook. I traded in my pencil for a ballpoint pen because I hate the way pencil lead smears on your hand, and I rarely planned to erase or change anything I wrote, anyway. I still don't erase or change much of my compositions, preferring instead to have a certain mood come over me in which the words just flow like The Blues Brothers on a mission from God. I have never been prolific, and I never shall be. My compositions derive from special, brief bursts of lighthearted energy. I have no interest whatsoever in writing fiction or developing plots and characters. I just want to tell readers my stories in a manner that closely resembles the writing I most enjoy reading.

When I first began writing, I thought my compositions were truly magical. I thought that surely they must appeal to anyone with enough intelligence to become interested in my style. I was writing in a very special style that was truly unique to me. Who wouldn't enjoy reading my work? I was humorous, entertaining, joyful, and imaginative. I was all the things on paper that I never was in real life. I was so much older then. I knew it all. I was so certain that I did. I knew that one day my work would be published and I would become the acclaimed author that I had always thought I deserved to be.

All I had to do was wait for iUniverse to be founded so I would never have to deplete my bank account and use up all my precious garage space just to be self-published. There has been nothing mentioned up to this point in my story that could not be explained by a dump-truck-load of naivete. The problem is that it would take another forty years of maturity on my part to clearly perceive how naive I really was.

I completed my first book in about 1972. It was never published. It was unpublishable. It was so obtuse in nature that you had to be me to even understand it. It was a very bad book. The concept was brilliant. Remember, I said that, not some reader. The material deserved to see the light of day, but the actual product didn't. Even I knew it. I knew it so well that I did not even release the story to iU as my first book. This story was so special to me that I knew I wanted to practice first, so I released my second composition to a small audience as a series of articles and stories that dribbled into the public consciousness over a period of ten years. Even then, I knew I would one day re-edit the whole project into one cohesive book. As soon as I discovered iUniverse, I began that process. Close to a year later, Plastic Ozone Daydream was released on 12/30/00. My second book was written, edited, and released about sixteen months after Daydream, but its content was far more straightforward in a strictly nonfiction sense. The short version is that Ker-Splash arrived from the shallow water of my brain, but Daydream was a great white shark of imagination! If you happen to be into classic Corvettes, I promise you that Daydream will take you so far into deep space you will wave at Spock as you pass The Enterprise!

This brings us to my third book, The Last Horizon. On Amazon Horizon appears to have been whipped out in five months after Ker-Splash. The truth is more like thirty years! I always knew that one day I would take the time to completely rewrite and re-edit that first terrible book. It was a story I just had to tell. Since the late Sixties, I have been living my life in a pattern I discovered that has enriched my ability to understand modern American social behavior. I discovered what would become my own personal theory of personality. Of course I became a psychology major in college, and of course I enjoyed my psych and sociology courses far more than any other of my classes. Why not? I had formed my own theory of personality long before I took the course, Theories of Personality. I was home. This is who I was meant to be!

Believe it or not, the point of this post is not to hawk my books or tell you my life story. The point is to show you how naive we as authors can all be concerning our own work. Yes, I still think highly of my own books, and yes, I feel as if I have composed my books with a level of quality that even I would enjoy reading. Have I spent a little time editing my books? The second one didn't get a whole lot of time, but it didn't really need it, either. The others deserved the time and they got it. Why do I support iUniverse with my own wallet, as well as through the reviews on this blog? As a corporate, publishing partner, the company does its part. The corporate officers may not care grasshopper spit if an author's book sells well or not, and they certainly do not care why a particular iU book sells or not. They do, however, produce a quality product. As the computer nerds of old use to say, garbage in, garbage out, and that about says it all as far as iU books are concerned. If you give them a carefully edited and proofread manuscript, they will print you a professional-looking book. If you want the cover to be something other than a variation of some other iU book's cover, you have to give them the raw material. If you don't, you will probably see the same photo that has been used on your book's cover also on someone else's cover. You have to give a lot of your personal time and energy to the project or the computer nerds' refrain will apply to your book.

I think Bob was trying to say that he had recently matured at a time after he had thought he already knew all there was to know. That's exactly the way I felt when I began to edit The Corvette Chronicles into Plastic Ozone Daydream. I felt that way again when it was time to totally rewrite The Witch-Mortal Seeking into The Last Horizon, leaving a stinky title in the wastebasket along with the incoherent composition style. You know, I still cannot get through more than a little of Tarantula. I still have my copy from The Sixties. It's probably the only book more than two years old on my entire shelf that is still unread! Do you know why? It was just a contractual obligation that Bob got himself into at a time when both his brain and his marketability were both as hot as a lit stick of dynamite, but he really didn't have the free time to properly complete the project. Bob was totally allergic to punctuation when he wrote Tarantula! That incoherent wad of nonsense still outsells all of my books put together, even after forty years. The moral of this story is: Unless your name is Robert Zimmerman, you better write, rewrite, edit, and proofread the grasshopper's knees out of that iUniverse book you plan to show to the public. Otherwise, you're just embarrassing yourself.

The State of the Blogs

Although the legendary PODdy Mouth has retired from her mountainous slushpile, her vacuous void seems to be filled by the somewhat aggressive POD Critic and others who have rushed into the fray. I refer to POD Critic as aggressive because he sort of comes from the same New York publishing mold of tradition that brought so much attention to the deceased girlondemand. He seems to be saying Bring on the slushpile! in a manner that I studiously avoid. We have very little in common as POD book reviewers, and that is exactly the way it should be in order for us to offer a genuine choice to the horde of authors out there desperate for honest reviews. You can call them honest; or you can call them legitimate, as I do in the header of this blog. Whatever you want to call them, these are reviews presented with the intent of placing deserving POD books on the same shelf as good, traditionally published books. Maybe the percentage of deserving POD books is much smaller than that of traditionally published ones, but we all know that at least a few high-quality POD books have been released. In my humble opinion, the number is much higher than a few.

The higher quantity of deserving books is one of the reasons I have chosen to review only iUniverse books. Every POD reviewer needs to limit the potential onslaught in one way or another. My method is just a little more unusual. If you read certain posts on this blog, you will rapidly discover that I have no connection whatsoever with iUniverse other than four books of my own wearing that nameplate. I am a very anti-corporate person and iU is a corporation just like all the rest. I refuse to feed any of my twelve engines anything but Exxon because they make the best gasoline. When I spend a godzillion hours creating a book, I will gladly pay a little more to the company that I think makes the best print-on-demand books. Unlike many of the other review blogs, I insist on reading the actual, paper book. I am giving you a lot of personal service for free. You can wrap up a copy of your book and trot down to the post office.

Anyone considering submitting a book for review is encouraged to check out the links on this blog. You should be amazed at the choices you really have. Some write really long, detailed reviews, and some compose compact little signatures that capture the essence of your book. Many will review the common fiction genres such as scifi, thrillers, fantasy, romance, horror, etc., but you are, of course competing with many other aspiring authors for those review slots. If you are fifty years old and you have written the nonfiction work of your lifetime, I'm your man. Some reviewers accept Young Adult books, but others do not. Some will place your reviews on Amazon or B&N, but others will not. I doubt that any others will compose separate reviews for you: that's part of what I referred to earleir as personal service. Many of the other reviews are absolutely free. Mine are not, since you must pay for an author-discounted copy of your book and a few dollars of postage. Some reviewers will tell you what a mess you have made. If I do that, it will be via personal, direct email, not included within the review. Most of the other reviewers keep their identities private. Mine is available for any prospective reviewee to discover with a modicum of research. You are encouraged to research anything you want to know about me before submitting your review request. As soon as I receive a submission request from you, I will seek out whatever information I can about you and your book prior to accepting it for review. I don't really have a slushpile, and I think this is the main reason why practically all of the iU books I have read have been quite good. Yes, there have been a couple of turkeys, but unlike all the other legitimate review blogs of POD books, my supply of gobblers has been quite small.

This brings me to mention that other kind of POD reviewer. There are bunches of these out there, and, unfortunately, you have to do a lot of internet research to truly discover their real essence. To be nice, as well as accurate, I call them volume reviewers. Most of them charge real money for their POD reviews, although some try to carefully conceal this biased fact from both authors and readers. Some of them charge outrageous fees, such as the $360 Kirkus charges for an iUniverse review! If you have ever wondered why you have never heard of me directly through iU, this is the reason. Why would any author buy the cow if he knew he could get the milk for free elsewhere?

As I said to POD Critic back when he was just starting his blog, what we need is a known ring of POD reviewers. The ring does not have to be technically set up in any particular manner. It just needs to be easily searchable and available for interested authors and readers. I think it should be limited to strictly legitimate POD reviewers with no volume reviewers allowed. If you read through many of POD Critic's posts, I think you will get the picture. Anyone can churn out positive reviews of bullshit for $70. Whenever you look at a review of a POD book at Amazon, always click on the See All My Reviews link. Yes, I live right down the road from a company that shovels bull hockey on any POD author with $70 to squander on a glowing review! If you request a review from me, I shall click every link you have at Amazon and B&N, and I'll know if your earlier reviews are legitimate or not, even before I accept your book for review. If I want to buy a car, I read the specifications page of the model's road test in Road & Track. Have you read the fine print on an R&T specs page? They tell you everything from the temperature and wind velocity at the time of the test to the gear ratios in the transmission! That's the sort of information I want to read about a book in a review before I buy the product. I don't want to know the plot details, but I do want to know how it compares to other books of its type. A Motor Trend reader might buy a book after reading a review paid for by the author, but I wouldn't.

The only way POD authors and books will gain any genuine, lasting respect is to earn it. If we don't care enough to edit and proofread the hell out of our books, how can we expect readers to truly enjoy reading them? In case you haven't figured it out already, when I review an iU book I'm looking for professionalism above everything else. I want to hold a book in my hand. I want it to be not a vanity-press book, not a Print On Demand book, not a self-published book, but just a book. POD Critic and a few others will shove your plotline, characters, and dialogue through the ringer for you. Certainly I shall do some of that, too, but not as diligently as others will. We as authors, readers, and reviewers are offering our humble services to you. You can take the bait and risk being told what kind of writer you really are, or you can take your credit card down the street. They will be quite happy to tell you whatever you want to hear. Can you handle the truth?

Romance, Riches, and Restrooms

Romance, Riches, and Restrooms:  
A Cautionary Tale of Ambitious Dreams and Irritable Bowels 
by Tim Phelan

(iUniverse / 0-595-38544-3 / May 2006 / 268 pages / $19.95)

Cue up The William Tell Overture, please. A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty... Who was that running man? That was Tim Phelan, Kemo Sabe. Indian call him Running Man with Fire in Caboose! Him not need horse. He already got the trots.

Yes, sports fans, this book really is about the most secret of subject matter, the squirts, the trots, the Mexican two-step, the runs, to the bathroom, that is. Tim Phelan has written a memoir in which only the names of those who have known Pepe le Pew intimately have been changed. Mr. Phelan has been congratulated for his guts, but not for his intestinal fortitude. He has been spotted with his precious backpack loaded with emergency apparel clutched closely to his chest as he sprints toward the exits in a somewhat awkward running style. Did you know he was a triathlete? I'm not kidding: he can run with the best of 'em. He almost turned pro!

Aside from training for the big triathlon, chasing girls, trying to build a high-powered career, successfully building a high-powered neurosis, and single-handedly keeping Pepto-Bismal in business, he found the time to write a book. It was a book only he could write, and no one else dared to write. The jokes are numerous, and the embarrassing moments, as well as a bunch of other stuff, are out of control. If you think a twelve-year-old buying rubbers for the first time is funny, how about a handsome, eligible bachelor trying to escape the corner drugstore with Fleet enema products in the bag? The author has it bad and he will try anything at least once. If you think Steve Martin and Sarah Jessica Parker had a funny scene in L. A. Story, then Romance, Riches, and Restrooms will leave you rolling on the floor. Try not to laugh while you read the book in your personal library room. You might not want to roll on that floor!

Aside from the obvious powder-room embarrassment and laughter, this is a somewhat serious book for those genuine sufferers of IBS. If you have it, or know someone who does, Tim Phelan's tale of woe has been written specifically for you. The storyline will relieve some of your anguish with joy, and let you feel very much not alone in your embarrassing little private world. Mr. Phelan has obviously joined many others in an official capacity to aid others inflicted with IBS. Contact information for the national societies and organizations concerning IBS are listed in the back of this very professionally composed, arranged, and edited book. As for the dreaded typographical error count that I so diligently monitor in all the books I review, Romance, Riches, and Restrooms has true star power. This book has been as perfectly proofread as any POD book I have read. Congratulations, Tim, you have come officially out of the closet, the water closet, that is!

Submission Guidelines

In case you haven't noticed, until now there has not been an official statement of the submission guidelines made readily available to visitors. The information has always been present, scattered throughout several pages, but now that the site has grown up, I think an official guidelines post has become necessary. As this post passes from its front-page viewpoint, I shall add a link to it that will always be available to new visitors. I still highly recommend that any author seriously considering a submission should go back and read the earlier posts that deal with the subject in detail. This is just a simplified version of my opinion on the matter.

How do I request a review for my book?

Place a comment on any post on the blog or send a message to ice9 at e-tabitha dot com with a request that you desire a review of your book. Include a direct email address at which you can be contacted. Please do not use an address at MySpace or some other monster-sized site. Your real name and/or the title of your book are optional as long as I can find this information from the email or web address you send. I shall respond promptly to the email address you have provided.

Do you review only books published by iUniverse?

No. This was the case when the site was established back in 2006. We added additional reviewers in early 2008, and now all self-published POD imprints, except Lulu, will be considered for review. Lulu Book Review offers a similar, free service to Lulu authors. Click the link in the left column of this site to visit Lulu Book Review.

Does the genre of my book have to fall within any particular category?

No. Any book will be considered if it fits all the other acceptable parameters.

Does my book have to be a new release?

No. Any iU or other self-published POD book from 1998-onward is eligible. Lulu authors will be referred to Shannon's Lulu Book Review.

What types of books will you not accept for review?

Cheaters and those written by Gomer Pyle and edited by Ernest T. Bass. You can find many descriptions of cheaters in the other posts on this blog, but the basic idea is that if you write a book about a dead blonde from Mexia, you need not apply. Ditto for any book with a celebrity's name in the title, any book that implies a connection with any famous book or characters, and any get-rich-quick schemes.

Do you accept any electronic formats or unpublished manuscripts for review?

No. I shall send you my address and you will send me a published copy of your iUniverse book. An author's signature on the title page is always appreciated. The books are read and reviewed in the order they are received in my mailbox.

Will I receive the standard personal-service package of four separate reviews and email updates on the status and progress of my reviews?

Yes, as long as I do not get swamped with a backlog of books to review. If that happens, I shall have to decide at that time what I can do to remain on schedule.

Will you sell my book on Amazon or elsewhere after the review has been completed?

Absolutely, positively no-way-Jose! As an iU author myself, I find that practice despicable. I shall keep your book displayed on my bookshelf until I think of a reader who I am quite sure will read it and like it. I may give some books to libraries eventually, but so far, I have not done so.

Where can I read other reviews you have done, so I can decide if I like your style?

You can, of course, read all the reviews on this blog site. You can also find entirely different reviews I have composed for the same books at Amazon, B&N, and Authors Den. You can even go to Amazon and round up the reviews I have posted there and read them all at once!

Read all the posts concerning submission guidelines.

My Summer Vacation

 My Summer Vacation 
by Hannah R. Goodman(iUniverse / 0-595-39430-2 / May 2006 / 144 pages / $11.95)

Hannah R. Goodman is a new writer of informative novels for young adults. Her two books parallel those of Lyda Phillips. In fact, the two authors even know each other. Like Ms. Phillips, Hannah writes short novels that surround the lives of teenage characters who have serious underlying issues. My Summer Vacation is her second novel. My Sister's Wedding (not reviewed here) received accolades galore, and this second book is a continuation of the life of sixteen-year-old Maddie Hickman. The married sister's history of alcohol problems weighs on younger Maddie's mind as she prepares for a quiet summer at camp with her friends.

The pack of friends at the coed, creative-nerd camp have plans that do not include quiet. Two of the boys in Maddie's clique put up their dukes over one of the girls, and both get thrown out of camp for fighting. This is a clique of teenage Counselors in Training, not a bunch of ten-year-old boys, so a brawl over a girl gets everybody's attention. Catfights of a similar, but less phsyical, nature will break out among the girls, too, so Maddie has to seek solitude elsewhere. She finds it in a final-year camper (not a CIT) with Tourette's Syndrome and a love for the classic rock of his parents' generation. The teenage soap bubbles keep on developing as the teens learn to deal with the sudden passing of loved ones, addictive personalities, and the kissing of other people's boyfriends. It may not be Meatballs, but My Summer Vacation is a quick, lighthearted read, even with the trials, tribulations, and tragedies.

Hannah R. Goodman has approached the subject of enablers with humor and delicacy. Yes, some of the lead characters in the story are the psychological enablers of family members who just cannot seem to get their acts together. Although it never bellows from the pulpit, the book is intended to provide insight to teens who may be facing similar issues in real life. My Summer Vacation offers entertainment and enlightenment suitable for teens and their parents. It's too bad that the second novels of Hannah Goodman and Lyda Phillips cannot be packaged and sold together at a much lower price. The two summer camp stories for girls would double the insight and double the fun for the appropriate teen readers who most need them, but at $23 for about 250 pages, iU's price structure is still the company's Achilles heel. I have heard that Ms. Goodman is working on the acquisition of a more cost-effective publisher, but in the meantime, this book fills a need that I'm sure exists within many troubled families, for whom the price should not be a deterrent. Hannah Goodman is an ex-high school English teacher who has experience with troubled teens that climbs out from between the lines of the story.

The Sun Singer

 The Sun Singer  
by Malcolm R. Campbell
(iUniverse / 0-595-31665-4 / June 2004 / 320 pages / $19.95)

Robert is a normal teenage boy who has lots of very imaginative dreams inspired by his adventures in a time he has never known. Yes, the dreams feature a teenage girl or two, but his special relationship with his grandfather has taught him that the strange dreams contain a new reality he will soon enter. He has been groomed for this new adventure since he was very young. He had witnessed a tragic accident in which a young girl was killed, a day that would forever haunt his consciousness. After his grandfather dies, the remainder of the Elliott family takes a summer vacation to the mountains of Robert's destiny. One by one, the places, characters, and events of his dreams begin to come to life.

In my opinion, the best element of The Sun Singer is the way the story holds its ties with Robert's real world and family. Once he enters the dream world for real, the story becomes a fantasy in which Robert is now known as Osprey, and also as The Sun Singer. The Disney classic movie, Dragonslayer, stars a similar young hero who must save the tribe of the good guys from the evil villain. If you liked Dragonslayer, you will enjoy The Sun Singer, as there are similarities in the plot and characters. I mention that old '80's movie because it was of a particularly high quality, and so is the storyline of this book. The difference lies in The Sun Singer's firm grip on the current millennium. In this respect, the book owes more to the Carlos Castaneda Don Juan adventures with psychotropic plants than it does to Dragonslayer. Robert Adams lives in the current time and Osprey exists in a time long ago, but not in a galaxy far away. Robert flashes back and forth, at least within his own mind, between then and now. He was Osprey then and he is Robert now, but both are operating at the same mountainous location in the Western U.S. Robert steps through a time portal often traversed by his grandfather. While his body is apparently in one time, his mind can sometimes fluctuate between the two eras. They didn't call him the Soothsayer of West Wood Street for nuttin'!

That is all of the plotline that should be explained here. Malcolm R. Campbell has successfully crafted an elegant, romantic fantasy of good vs. evil that most fans of the genre should appreciate. The novel has been promoted as one for both old and young adults, and I concur with that assessment. I particularly like the way Robert acts like an adventurous, intelligent, well-behaved teenager. Although the book offers an appeal to adults with its separate reality ala A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, it does not include language or attitudes that tend to influence young readers in a negative manner. The character development is well done, and I mean that with a double entendre. Fantasy fans will eagerly await a sequel when they can step into another time with Osprey without leaving Robert or his modern lifestyle completely behind.

Two very small, negative issues need to be mentioned. By doing so, maybe the next time Robert becomes Osprey, the adventure will be even more enjoyable. The first is that a little more care should be applied to the proofreading stage. Although of the most trivial nature, the typos in this book reach a far higher number than they should. These are of such a miniscule type that they do not slow down the reading or comprehension a whit, but a book with this high quality of storytelling deserves the look of a completely professional effort. The second issue is that I think the story would be more immediate in its feel of excitement if it had been told in the present tense instead of the past tense. The present tense would better serve the reader's wonder and exhilaration of the time-travel experience. I have no further complaints. I am not a rabid fan of the fantasy genre, but I liked the book and I enjoyed the experience of flashing through time and space with well-developed characters within a psychologically believable storyline. If an old nonfiction writer like me found the trip entertaining, certainly many of the multitude of fantasy readers out there will be ecstatic from the journey.

The Latest Updates

If you are here, you probably already know there are a few honest book review sites out there in the ozone, and that this is one of them. I have just posted a new article at Authors Den about the subject: Made in China

Coming soon will be a review of the first fantasy book on this site, Malcolm R. Campbell's The Sun Singer. So far it's gotten off to a good start. The Sun Singer will probably be followed by Hannah R. Goodman's My Summer Vacation for young adult readers. As always, we are a first to arrive, first reviewed website. Thank you for coming.

The Proof is in the Nitpick

Probably the most boring task in writing and producing a book is the proofreading stage. Any POD author must develop a taste for this task or the result will just invite the slap-fighters to a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, and we all know who's posterior is getting stabbed with pins! Did I say who's? Now this is exactly what today's lesson is about. We are also going to discuss how to sit your paper down on you're desk and read the text of your the book from your comoputer screen. Their are of course many other ways author's make a mess of there proofreading job, and I hope to manage to compile a complete listing of all the many ways I have encountered them doing so. So, get the led out of your pencils so I can lead the ways. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him durnk.

The final inspiration for this article was a post by POD-dy Mouth. She has a link to a site that is currently displaying the first chapters of many potential POD books. A read through some of the chapters with particularly low ratings will quite promptly expose a lack of proper proofreading. After many comparisons of what the Girl on Demand says about her multitudinous submissions for reviews with the few submissions I have received, I can only conclude that I have discovered the way to read a selection of very high-quality iUniverse books, while she has waded through the depth of the POD pit to discover the few diamonds she seeks. As I have covered in previous posts, I can only conclude that we each effectively find what we seek. The key difference is the manner in which we run our respective slushpile operations. I think I can honestly surmise that Poddy Girl and I both feel that many deserving POD authors do not get the attention they deserve. I also think there is no downside to the production of a POD book that has been as perfectly composed, edited, and proofread as possible.

For those of you who do not wish to play the donkey at the next party, here is a list to help keep the pinholes out of your derriere. Just for your information, the last book I completed contained more stupid, careless, proofreading-type errors than any iUniverse book I have read or reviewed on this site. It was a 500-page, traditionally published book on the subject of HTML. It was published in 1998, so you cannot say that the sloppy proofing was the result of Bush's bad trade policies. It was written by a PhD, so you cannot say it was written by a moron, either. Does a computer nerd know how to use a spelling and grammar program? Somebody just did not care enough to properly and carefully proofread the book.

Here is your first hint to use in the betterment of your future publications: the errors increased in frequency as the text neared the final pages of the HTML book. By the end, I was spotting at least one every other page! This is a common problem that I have observed in both iUniverse and traditionally published books. My guess is that the proofreader is tiring of the tedious job as he plods toward the end. I deliberately misstated the problem. I don't think the proofreader is plodding enough. He is rushing to complete the job as the finish line comes into focus. He is missing little boo-boos that he would have easily caught when he was feeling fresh and excited on his first run through the text. He's fumbling the ball in overtime. He dropped the ball in the last inning. There was a turnover at the five yard line. He was being led by the text when he should have gotten the lead out. Do you see how I got in a hurry and let the tense get jumbled while I began repeating myself? Rule #1: Pay even more attention as you read Chapter 50. I know its boring, but do it anyway! And while your at it, do it again... and again. Proofread the whole book three times.

Rule #2: Proofread the book in a somewhat different manner each of the three times you go though it. If you are reading it silently the first time, read it aloud the second. If you are reading it in a goal-directed, short-term manner the first time, read it at your leisure on the second go around. The best method is to read it out loud to another person while that person follows along in the text. If one of you is reading from a computer monitor, have the other one read from a copy you have printed on junk paper. If you like to mark up the junk paper version with a red pen, do so. If you like to correct as you go in a Word document, do it that way on the second reading. Whatever floats your boat keeps it from being christened Titanic.

Rule #3: Don't never ever let your trusted assistant make any changes in the Word document. You and only you should make these alterations; that is, unkless you want to confuse yourself silly and widn up with errors you throught you fixed, but she said she fixed thm, and you assumed that you had the correct and lastest version of the document in your computer, but actually that was the one she threw in the trash when she said she thought you had the findal document version in you're comoputer. Whew! You got the message?

Rule #4: By all means, use whatever spelling and grammar checking program(s) you have, but keep in mind that Bill Gates doesn't know everything about writing the world's greatest novel and publishing it with iUniverse. Look carefully at the suggestions made by the computer programs, but make each final, small decision yourself.

Rule #5: You are no longer in middle school. Don't be afraid to open a dictionary whenever you have a question. There are no smart alecks in the back row to laugh at your nerdy ignorance.

Rule #6: As I have stated many times previously, the most common mistake is the misplacement, omission, or repetition of the most common words.

Rule #7: Watch out for incorrectly changing tense. It happens to the best of us. It happens within paragraphs, and it even happens within sentences.

Rule #8: No matter how clever you think you are, none of your readers like plowing though any particular conceit, grammatical element, or any other cute twist of the English language if it is repeated too often in your book. A few examples are: italics, bold text, super-short and/or incomplete sentences, too-long sentences, and words or phrases that are simply repeated too often. A particular point to keep in mind is that the iUniverse printing system does not handle underlining well. Any word or phrase underlined in an iU book looks as if the underline is in bold and the word is in regular text. I recommend using underlining in an iU manuscript only in applications in which the underline is the only grammatically correct way to display the word or phrase.

Rule #9: Many sentence structures are not exactly incorrect, but they are what I call funky. These are the ones that Word will highlight as grammatically incorrect every time, but we all know that real Americans speak that way anyway. For example, you may have discovered that Word sometimes spits up sentences with a passive structure. If you have no personal objection, then by all means follow Word's orders and fix the funky sentence. In many cases, you may want the sentence to still do the funky chicken, and this is not necessarily wrong, just funky. Pay attention to Word, but use your own judgement, too.

Rule #10: Punctuation is the little engine that could funk up your whole project, so give it its due. Capitalize the right words and put the commas in all the right places, but none of the wrong ones. Use too many ...'s and I'll have to send you back up to #8! Punctuate your whole book as if you were addressing an email or searching for a URL. You know where a lost dot can take you in that department, don't you? Ignore #10... and we'll be saying; we've got the tail, where are the pins?

Distant Cousin: Repatriation

Distant Cousin: Repatriation  
by Al Past

(iUniverse / 0-595-39929-0 / May 2006 / 182 pages / $13.95 / Kindle $4.00)

The action-packed sequel to the magical Distant Cousin is here! Matt Mendez and Ana Darcy try to continue to lead normal lives, even after Darcy's relatives from the planet Thomo have arrived on Earth. The pursuit of a normal lifestyle may have been successful if another nosy reporter, the FBI, the Mafia, and a conglomerate with scruples learned from Enron had not gotten involved. About the only normalcy Matt and Darcy can achieve is the discovery that if peppers are added to their toddler's green vegetables, she will actually eat something green. The whole affair hardly leaves time for Darcy to teach Matt how to drive her spaceship!

Al Past carries the story of Darcy, the ex-princess of Thomo, deeper into the realm of reality on Earth. Considerably more concise than Distant Cousin, the sequel carries the adventure into a believable sequence of events. The brevity of the descriptions of both characters and scenes does hamper the magic a bit, but the pace has picked up considerably from that of the predecessor, and that seems to have been the author's intent.

Yes, I highly recommend this sequel to anyone who has already read Distant Cousin. Any reader who is approaching Mr. Past's saga of The Barbie from Outer Space for the first time with Repatriation in hand will miss a lot. Although the key background elements of the plot of Distant Cousin are mentioned in all the right places for those readers who may be meeting Darcy for the first time, there is absolutely no substitute for a careful reading of Distant Cousin first. Standing alone, I can only give Repatriation four stars, but as a sequel, it easily earns the full set of five. I do not wish to mention any further plot elements here. Just open your mind's eye and imagine Spielberg directing the movie. Would he combine the two books into one movie? Maybe he would because the plotlines are seamless; or maybe he wouldn't because you have to slow down the action to capture the real magic of a starchild. I just want to feel the delight of seeing Matt drive that space pod!

Legitimate Reviews for Legitimate Books

As I have often stated on this blog, the reviews on this site are reserved for iUniverse books that offer deserving, original material. We are not an equal opportunity employer and we do not cater to the lowest common denominator. Cheaters need not apply. In case you have any questions about which titles are considered cheaters, here are a few examples:
 

Best Stock Picks for a World Economy

Get Rich Off the Housing Bubble

The Flip-Flops of Kerry & McCain

Obama’s Pajamas

Ringo Starr: The Real Walrus

Madonna’s Guide to Adoption

Rosie O’Donnell: The Slap-fight of the Century

Naughty Blondes of the Internet

Lose Fifty Pounds with a Vibrator

The Legend of Britney’s Panties

Would these titles sell? Of course they would! Here is an equivalent list, except these are real iUniverse titles that are currently among the top 50 iUniverse sellers at Amazon. (Keep in mind, of course, that these titles were not selected from iU titles listed under the Writers Club Press imprint. There may very well be WCP titles that would shove some of these out of the winners circle.)

Sensible Stock Investing: How to Pick, Value, and Manage Stocks

The Maui CEO: Import from China, Sell on eBay, and Live Wherever You Want

How to Attract Wealth, Health, Love, and Luck Into Your Life Immediately

(112 pages, including front matter, for only $12.95!)

Effortless Cash Flow (if you give us $24.95)

More Letters From Pemberley: 1814-1819: A Further Continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

Vlad Dracula: The Dragon Prince

The Russian Adoption Handbook

Twelve Step Plan to Becoming an Actor in LA

A Stripper’s Tail: Confessions of a Las Vegas Stripper

Pick-Up Lines That Work: Get the Girl Tonight!

Ten Hints for Prospective iU Authors

I have just posted a new article at Authors Den that many of you may be interested in, particularly if you have a book yet to be submitted to a publisher. It details a list of ten things that new POD authors often overlook when they submit their manuscripts. These are hints and ideas that I have encountered in my experiences with contributing to traditionally published books, publishing my own four iUniverse books, and reviewing iU books for this blog. Click the link to read the article.

...And Now for Something Completely Different:

Have you visited my political discussion blog? Suck the Boob

Have you seen how the Honda 50 changed America in 1959? Tiddlerosis

Would you like to see a picture of me looking stoopid, standing next to a big boat? Yeah, this is really me.

A Ship Full of Rats

Every new major development in America's commercialized culture follows a distinct pattern in its growth from infancy to a market past its prime. The computer industry reached this particular description of a peak in 1998. The internet followed with its peak in 2000. The POD industry began at the end of '97 and peaked with the internet in 2000. Those pioneering POD authors among us may remember the hope and joy we experienced back in the good old days. The feeling was both similar to and closely linked with the feelings we had about the internet in general during that same brief, glorious era. As the POD ship filled up to capacity with the artistic, technological innovators of the new millennium, the rats were climbing aboard, silently waiting for their opportunity. The rats usually fall into one of two groups.

Since I began this blog, I have tried as tactfully as I can to expose the slap-fighters. These are the people you might call the Sean Hannitys of our little world. They will do or say anything to retain the power of the status quo. Their repetitive laments include the same old whines. Print On Demand is a printing method. POD authors have not really been published because they did not survive the slushpile. 99% of POD books are garbage. Authors are patently unable to edit and proofread their own work. You must have a professionally designed cover to succeed. Only family members will ever read a POD author's book. Amazon is not good enough: you have to have your book for sale in B&N stores. Libraries hate POD books. POD publishers are nothing more than vanity presses. POD publishers are printers, not real publishers. Bookstore employees hate POD books. Bookstores will not order POD books. Have you heard enough yet? Do I have to explain to you that many of these particular rats are just trying to sell whatever they are selling? Have you noticed that many of the loudest slap-fighters are cover designers, micro-publishers, message board flamers, or bloggers tooting their own horns?

The other rat variety could care less about denigrating your publishing efforts. Instead, this type just wants to sell you something. The something is as usually close to nothing as it can possibly be. Their entire purpose is to sell you nothing for something. They will tell you all about the sales success they can bring for your book. In this manner, they are the opposite of the slap-fighters. They are all honey. The slap-fighters are all vinegar. If you have published a POD book, you have probably been approached by at least a few of these honeydrippers. If you have been promoting multiple releases online for several years, as I have, you have probably seen every scam the 'drippers have dreamed up. You find them in your mailbox and you discover them whenever you boot up your computer. For only $5999, we will make you a best-selling author! Our websites have the professional look that you need to succeed. Our multitudinous contacts will bring you fame and fortune beyond your wildest dreams. Our professional marketing specialists will assist you in writing the best press release possible. We have arranged radio interviews for nationally famous authors. Would you like to sell your manuscript as a successful screenplay? Are you barfing yet? Here's a fresh bag. Mine's already full.

If you are wondering why I don't just name the names of these rats, it is simply because I choose to take the high road, publicly at least. I usually don't pull any punches when I am communicating with a fellow author via private email. That's the main difference between me and Sean Hannity. I feel about as strongly about the once-closed door that has been opened by iUniverse as he does about President Bush's policies. He spouts his opinion to millions of people (morons?) five nights a week. I try to be a little more low key. If you have a question about one of the rats, you can always email me and I shall privately name names and give you whatever opinion I may have. Blatant flamers will be summarily ignored.

Now let's get back to business. Poddy Mouth receives 100 submissions for reviews a day. I guess you submitters are the same people who play the lottery and eat at Burger King so you can enter the corporate contest of the day. Whoopeeee! Over here at the peasant blog, we just quietly wait for a book that is so good that our review has been quoted in the local newspaper. (Unfortunately, I do not have a link to that story at this time.) The review of that book's sequel, Distant Cousin: Repatriation will be coming soon. Watch for it here!

Distant Cousin

Distant Cousin 
by Al Past
(iUniverse, Inc. / 0-595-37292-9 / 978-0-595-37292-8 / October 2005 / 390 pages / $21.95 / Kindle $5.00)

Note: This cover is not the usual online version. There is a special, subtle quality to the cover that is not evident at B&N or Amazon. Just keep in mind that if you order the book, you will get a slightly better cover than is evident from the online JPG posted at Amazon and B&N. If you squint, you will see a face in the cover I have posted here. Now on with the show!

Distant Cousin is the best novel I have read in a long time. I can name about ten that I like better, and then I run out of titles. In what should be considered an appropriate fashion, the cover blurb (the same one you will read online) refers only to the first few pages of the book. The many pleasant plot twists of a book like Distant Cousin should never be given away for the sake of advertising. The author has added a new version at Amazon that provides a bit more information, but probably the less plot details you know, the more you will enjoy Distant Cousin.

Distant Cousin is a screenplay waiting to become a Spielberg movie. You cannot escape the visions in your mind from E.T. and Close Encounters as you read through it, and the magic so aptly personified in those two movies is also prevalent in Distant Cousin. The book is a SciFi love story with an adventurous plot. A human from another planet comes for a visit. She looks like Barbie, or the beauty from Species, except she is not a monster wearing a Barbie suit. She lands near Alpine, TX, which makes the landscape backdrop look like that in Wavelength, another movie with stylistic elements in common with Distant Cousin. A young journalist who has become somewhat bored with his job spots Barbie in the library, and he is fascinated by the combination of her beautiful innocence and the scientific books she is studying. The subplots begin to roll in, and that's all I'm going to tell you.

Al Past is a very accomplished, literary author. The sequel to Distant Cousin is already out, and I know you SciFi fans love sequels. The author thought about, researched, and studied the details of his concept for many years before releasing Distant Cousin, and the depth of his effort shines from the pages. Yes, the usual number of ubiquitous grammatical and typographical errors are present in the book, but that is my sole complaint. When the characters and plot are this good, holding up for the entire, considerable page count, I won't let the boo-boo drivel tarnish a book that deserves at least five stars. The closest thing to cheating that this book does is have a plot related to many movies, and the author has told me that he has seen less movies and television than the average American. If I never review another book, Distant Cousin has proven my thesis once and for all. There really are regular novels out there published by iUniverse that have not cheated with an appeal to obsessive genre readers, and they are outstanding! I am not a SciFi fan nor a romance fan, and I read about equal numbers of fiction and nonfiction. Distant Cousin will stamp its wonderful magic on your soul.

See also: Interview with Dr. Al Past
Review of DC2: Repatriation
Review of DC3: Reincarnation
Review of DC4: Regeneration
Review of DC5: Recirculation
Review of DC6: Two Worlds Daughter
The 2007 PODBRAM Awards
Dr. Al Past's Blog